UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Latest on the U.N. vote on Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and related developments (all times local):
7:35 a.m.
Turkey’s president has heavily criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for threatening to cut off U.S. funding to countries that oppose his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he hopes the United States will be “taught a lesson” during a United Nations vote on the issue.
Speaking at a cultural awards ceremony in Ankara on Thursday, Erdogan accused Trump of seeking countries whose “decisions can be bought with dollars.”
Erdogan says: “Mr Trump, you cannot buy Turkey’s democratic will with your dollars. Our decision is clear.”
He adds: “I call on the whole world: Don’t you dare sell your democratic struggle and your will for petty dollars.”
Erdogan has been among the most vocal critics of Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem.
The resolution being voted on Thursday is co-sponsored by Turkey, chair of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Yemen, chair of the Arab Group at the U.N.
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5:45 a.m.
Israel’s prime minister is blasting the United Nations as a “house of lies” ahead of a vote to reject President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
Acknowledging that the resolution will likely pass by a wide margin, Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel “completely rejects this vote before it is made.”
Trump’s declaration on Dec. 6 departed from decades of U.S. policy, and international consensus, that the fate of Jerusalem should be decided through negotiations. Netanyahu says Jerusalem is Israel’s capital regardless of the outcome of Thursday’s vote.
The Palestinians turned to the General Assembly after the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on Trump to rescind his decision.
The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, home to key Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy sites, as their capital.
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1 a.m.
President Donald Trump’s threat to cut off U.S. funding to countries that oppose his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has raised the stakes in Thursday’s U.N. vote and sparked criticism at his tactics, which one Muslim group called bullying or blackmail.
Trump went a step further than U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley who hinted in a tweet and a letter to most of the 193 U.N. member states on Tuesday that the U.S. would retaliate against countries that vote in favor of a General Assembly resolution calling on the president to rescind his decision.
Haley says the president asked her to report back on countries “who voted against us” — and she stressed that the United States “will be taking names.”
